Flat Side Down
Ana pressed her palm against a fern frond, rough as a cat's tongue, and shook the rain off it. The warm rain had stopped. The whole valley steamed. Across the shallow stream, a bar of late light lay on the sand, gold and wide. River swam a loop and popped up beside her knee. "We could cross," Ana said. "We could build a way over." The water was only ankle-deep, but the mud was slippery as soap. So she gathered stones from the bank, round ones, bright ones, the prettiest she could find. River carried one in his mouth and set it down with a click.
Ana stacked the round stones in a line. They looked lovely, wet and shining. She stepped on the first one and it rolled. She stepped on the second and it sank. The third tipped sideways and dropped her, knee-deep and laughing, into the warm stream. River shot past her like an arrow and surfaced with a stone on his chest. Ana sat in the water and looked at her pretty rolling path. Round things roll. She turned one stone over and found a flat grey face, dull and plain, wide as her two hands. "Flat side down," she said. "Then press it in."
They hunted the dull flat ones after that. River dived and came up with slabs the colour of old bread. Ana laid each one in the sand and pressed until it stopped rocking. Flat side down, then press it in. Step by step the path grew across the stream, seven stones long. When she walked it, not one of them moved. The bar of light was waiting on the far sand, warm through her toes. Beside it sat a footprint as wide as a washtub, filled with rain, holding a small round piece of sky. River slid in and floated.
The maker of the footprint stood near, tall and slow, pulling leaves from a high branch. She bent her long neck down to the water, and the light slid along it like syrup. Ana leaned against her warm grey shoulder. River climbed into Ana's arms and tucked his whiskers under her chin. Slowly, slowly, the big one lifted them above the ferns and walked. The valley went gold, then grey, then soft. "Flat side down," Ana murmured, "then press it in." Behind them the seven stones stayed where she had put them, holding the last of the light.
